"Zelensky: "I don't believe the world, after we have seen what's going on in Ukraine" From CNN's Jake Tapper / Written by CNN's Maureen Chowdhury Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he has difficulty believing in the reliability of "some countries or some leaders" after the escalation of the war in his country. ..... Zelensky told CNN that his faith and his belief lies with practical, tangible efforts and the Ukrainian people. "We just believe contracted, pragmatic things. If you are our friends or partners, give us weapons, give us hand, give us support us, give us money and stop Russia, kick Russia. You can do it if you're a friend. If you think about this democracy and everything just of this moment because we have the same thoughts, if we are speaking about freedom, not because we want to have dialogue about freedom," he said. Zelensky continued, "The only belief there is belief in ourselves, in our people, belief in our Armed Forces, and the belief that countries are going to support us not just with their words but with their actions. And that’s it. Never again … Really, everybody is talking about this and yet, as you can see, not everyone has got the guts.""
I don't think you can boil it down to how it makes any particular citizen feel about "who" is sent. The real issue is the geopolitical implications of our military being directly involved. We can't just send volunteers to Ukraine and pretend that we aren't at war with Russia. Certainly, Russia, China, and everyone else would not make that distinction. In that case, then there is no need to make it a voluntary action... we'd have to be all hands on deck, and it would likely be WWIII and the potential end of civilization as we know it.
"Russian forces “gradually withdrawing” from captured Borivs'kyi district, local council says From CNN's Katharina Krebs in London While Russian forces are still in complete control of the Borivs'kyi district in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Moscow's troops are "gradually withdrawing" from the area in the direction of Donetsk region, the Borova village council said in a statement on Telegram on Sunday. “There is no mobile connection and no Internet, which are impossible to restore as the territory is occupied by the Russians,” it said, adding that “some places are left without electricity and gas.” According to the statement, Russian troops are housed in the buildings of the village council, the Palace of Culture, hospitals, in the homes of some civilians. "Occupying authorities" in the area have been appointed from among local collaborators, who are now going to coordinate administrative activities in the community. The council said some parts of the community suffered significant damage and that it hasn’t been able to get in touch with the psychoneurological boarding school in the area, which housed about 200 patients. "
Cnn live "Mariupol “may be a red line” in negotiations with Russia, Ukraine’s foreign minister says Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Sunday that the "situation" in Mariupol “may be a red line” in negotiations with Russia. “The situation in Mariupol is both dire -- militarily -- and heartbreaking,” Kuleba said on CBS' “Face the Nation." “The city doesn’t exist anymore. The remaining of the Ukrainian army and a large group of civilians are basically encircled by the Russian forces. They continue their struggle, but it seems from the way the Russian army behaves in Mariupol, they decided to raze the city to the ground at any cost,” he added. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky previously said any further Russian war crimes would make negotiations with Russia impossible."
Cnn live "Putin believes he’s winning the war, Austrian chancellor says From CNN's Jennifer Deaton Austria's chancellor said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin believes he's winning the war. Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he couldn’t fully explain Putin’s rationale, but did say Putin had his “own war logic," adding the Russian leader “sent me clear messages about his concerns," and that he seemed to have a full grasp of what was unfolding on the ground. “I think he is now in his own war logic. He thinks the war is necessary for security guarantees for the Russian Federation. He doesn’t trust the international community. He blames the Ukrainians for genocide in the Donbas region. So, um, well, he is now in his world, but I think he knows what is going on now in Ukraine," Nehammer said. Nehammer said that Putin switched to German in their face-to-face meeting to warn that it would be better for the war to end sooner rather than later."
Make no mistake, there are already soldiers there fighting. Even if they're retired & volunteers, it's a good possibility Putin will eventually exploit that to defend to his people the notion of "fighting NATO" & not that Ukraine is giving Russia headaches. As to the start of WW3, we're there. Thunk of how WW2 started with the invasion of Poland & others. The question is how much longer will Putin be able to keep the world too scared to act. By the way, Finland & Sweden are now fast tracking to join NATO ASAP. Kosovo has requested a US airbase there. So in around 2 months either Russia proves that the NATO excuse is BS (like the Nazi excuse) and backs off or they threaten/attack Finland & Sweden over NATO membership. And then people will be bemoaning about how "oh should've tried stopping Putin sooner". Edit - to clarify, the "we're there part" I refer to is the beginning stages. There's still time to keep this from escalation.
I don't mean in secret I mean the volunteers now serving with that international squad in Ukraine. I know there's that link about the SAS trainers but again that's not active fighters. Are there top secret operations? Don't know. Hard to hide in this day & age so to be able to sneak actual troops in to do stuff without folks finding out would be incredibly hard. And considering how much the US & NATO are being transparent because they're scared of Putin, the likelihood that there's covert stuff is low. In Putin's world he'll sell it as "well, we went up against NATO forces and best we could do without killing innocent people is Donbas & keeping Crimea", instead of "our military is awful & the only reason we didn't get our asses handed to us is that we threatened to kill the world including my fellow Russians with nukes".
Once again, it's not the same as publicly declared ops. Volunteers who were not sent/sanctioned by the US gov't is not the same as saying all U.S. troops who want to volunteer to fight alongside the Ukrainians can do so as a gov't policy. That's essentially the same as declaring war.
Really, France?? Edit - I know they were likely trying to send aid ASAP & didn't check. Per the doctor the Germans are being more careful with dates. Those handing out the aid should've looked first but probably didn't know to look & were likely hurrying under fire.
So can't post the tweet but apparently Kevin McCarthy said that Biden should've gotten Ukraine weapons sooner. (Tweet has very colorful language) Lest we forget, Trump withheld weapons/aid to Ukraine in exchange for stuff on Biden/Hunter Biden. So...welcome to the 21st Century to you as well - can't hide from your own words/your boss' words.
